Month: December 2004

Last Sunday, went down to Singapore Expo with a friend to another cosplay
party. Being lazy, I had to wait till around 2.30 for him to pick me up with his
car. Of course, I missed out on a lot but thankfully, the Ayanami Rei figurines
I was eyeing wasn’t sold off.

The booth owner had advertised her stock through an anime forum and I browsed
through a lot of pictures and spotted some really neat figurines. She was nice
to give me a small discount probably because the day was going to end soon and
she still has lots of stuff on her booth that she wants to clear. I tried to
bargained a few more dollars off and the sum we agreed eventually was $125.

Besides shopping, I had the chance to meet some FFXI players. All of them
from other servers. One of them cosplayed as a Red Mage in his full artifact
armor and another, a black mage in his job-specific equipment. Red Mage, Etoh,
brought some Ginger Cookies, Meat Mithkabobs, Shihei, a Mandragora and Goblin
plush toy and some other FFXI stuff. I don’t think they were for sale but just
as part of his cosplaying. I heard he even brought a flute and played like the
bards in the game.

Etoh had played FFXI for 2 years. Yes, he started the game with the Japanese.
Which also means he played the Japanese version of the game. I also had a chat
with another FFXI player whose main job was Monk. He ranted about the high
prices of equipment and how he spent 10 hours a day farming for gil. Eventually,
he found it a chore and stopped playing for a while. Then returned and went
levelling his character.

Here’s the pictures of the stuff I bought, taken from the merchant’s
website.

The recent December updates to Final Fantasy XI has introduced 2 new rings into the game. Accuracy rings like the Sniper Ring and Archer Ring are highly sought after by many people and thus, it costs a lot to own one. So what Square Enix did to please poor players like me is to introduce 2 new accuracy rings both of which are available by completing a quest. Though not as good as them Sniper’s, it would be good substitute for them.

So I googled the web and browsed many FFXI sites, I managed only to find information on the Venerer Ring. It’s a quest that starts in the Tavnazia regions. A place I cannot go without completing the 3 Promyvions – Dem, Holla and Mea. I’ve completed Dem and Mea already. As a Warrior with Monk subjob. I’m lucky to be accepted because Ninja subjobs are more preffered because of Utsusemi:Ichi.

So now, I’ve soloed my Ninja to lv 12. At first I thought that with high enough Bastok fame, I would have enough Tenshodo fame to accept the quest for Utsusemi:Ichi scroll. But found out I didn’t have enough after travelling all the way to Norg. [:(] . Some quests require a certain level of fame in order for the NPC to offer it to you.

In order to increase my Tenshodo fame, I have 3 options, 2 involve trading items to an NPC. Those items are expensive. The third option involves smuggling goods from San d’Oria to Jeuno. If you succeed, you get 1000gil. If you get caught, your airship pass gets revoked for the next 24 hours. (or until after 12am Japan time). Meaning you cannot take the airship from Jeuno to anywhere else.

I tried smuggling but got caught the second try. I tried buying Zinc Ores to trade but they were too expensive. I ended up investing on a set of Field equipment which improves Logging, Mining and Harvesting results, and went mining. Through mining, I will have a chance to dig up Zinc Ores. Turns out that mining can be quite fun, running around the mines, searching for a Mining Point.

Eventually, I end up with many tasks and short-term goals.

Current Goals:

Mine Zinc Ores, trade them to NPC for Tenshodo fame.

Skill up Smithing to 20 in order to craft Iron Ingots out of the Iron Ores I dig up from mining.

Once I accumulate enough Tenshodo fame, acquire Utsusemi:Ichi scroll from quest in Norg.

Level Ninja to 15 as a subjob for my Warrior in order to be accepted into Promyvion-Holla expeditions.

Complete Promyvion-Holla and explore Tavnazia for the Venerer Ring quest.

Bleah. Crystal reports is newbie-unfriendly. Hong Kong trainers can’t help me
much. I am the key person of this project so if clients don’t like it, I’m too
be blamed. This is by far, the first unenjoyable project I’m assigned to (as if
there’s other people to assign it to).

This project is a fruity mix of technologies, not much helpful
training provided, lots of business concepts/terms my technical
brain have difficulty comprehending.

Anyway, tomorrow’s the presentation of this CRM program to our client. I will
be present during the meeting with the big guys. Can’t wait to get this over
with.